Thus from every point of view, Greece is not so much a country as a vast mountain chain half submerged in the sea. And owing to the multiplicity and height of the mountains, the small area in which they are concentrated, the singular transparency of the air, and the degree to which the land is indented and intersected by sea, Greece appears to be strangely small,—even smaller than it really is. It is hardly anywhere more than two hundred miles deep, or one hundred miles broad. So that from almost any elevated point, the greater part of Greece can be seen at once. Attica, the Peloponnesus, the Eastern islands, the mountains of Boeotia, Argolis, Arcadia and Euboea, are all to be seen together. Attica is hardly bigger than the Isle of Wight, and infinitely less open to cultivation and transit. And ancient Athens would easily stand in the area of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.
When we see it, we realise how small Greece is, in one sense; and yet how widely spread out over the Eastern Mediterranean. Continental Greece is merely one vast mountain mass, into whose lateral valleys and gorges the sea has forced a channel. And yet, in another sense, Greece with its interminable chain of rocky islets, from Corcyra to Crete, from Crete to the Propontis, seems to lead on in a continuous land for a thousand miles. The mainland is severed by nature into small segments, each hardly able by itself to feed a thousand families.
Single great estate in England
All Attica can hardly grow as much food as a single great estate in England, France, or Russia. Eleusis, which Athens ultimately subdued and incorporated, is not so far from Athens as is Shepherd's Bush from Woolwich; and these famous towns are separated from each other by a steep and difficult mountain pass, which a regiment could hold against an army corps. Megara, which was a thorn in the side of Athens at the time of her imperial glory, was not much further from her than is Gravesend from London. Corinth, the deadly enemy of Athens, could be seen from the Acropolis. Asgina, which Themistocles so earnestly advised the Athenians to incorporate, looks as near to Athens as Harrow looks to Notting Hill; and a single oarsman might row himself across the gulf in any open boat bulgaria trips.
The mighty statue in bronze of Athene Promachos, the famous work of Pheidias, which, with its pedestal, towered some sixty feet on the summit of the Acropolis, could be seen from the coast of Argolis or from any of the heights of Corinth, Megara, Aigina, or Boeotia. Thence they could behold Athene keeping watch night and day over her beloved city. One used to doubt if this famous image could escape the charge of obtrusive monstrosity which is the note of colossal statues. But when we stand on the spot, and remember how this resplendent figure of the Patron Goddess ever faced the enemies of Athens, as each sunrise and sunset tipped with golden fire the point of her spear and the crest of her helm, we may conceive how this Palladium sank into the popular imagination. And we see fresh meaning in the tale how, eight hundred years after the date of its erection, Alaric and his Goths had been scared from their raid on the Acropolis by the vision of the Goddess keeping ward over her city in arms.
No comments:
Post a Comment